Family says son killed by Austin police was wrongfully shot

Mary Huber @marymhuber

Friday

Feb 1, 2019 at 6:32 PMFeb 1, 2019 at 6:47 PM

The family of a man who was shot and killed by Austin police early Tuesday is disputing the police account of events and demanding the release of the body-worn camera footage, saying that their son, 27-year-old Paul Andrew Cantu, was shot in cold blood despite officers knowing he had medical issues.

"He was a very kind person and humanitarian person who wouldn't hurt his self or anybody," Cantu's mother, Patricia, told the American-Statesman on Friday. "This was an assassination, the brutality and the use of deadly force against a person at his most vulnerable time."

Police Chief Brian Manley — who described the events leading up to the shooting in a briefing Tuesday morning, hours after Cantu's death — said investigators first called Cantu's family Monday night because they suspected that someone driving their vehicle had evaded a traffic stop in South Austin.

Cantu's dad, Robert, said police told him it was his vehicle and that they were looking for him. But Robert Cantu said he was in San Antonio at the time, and the car couldn't have been his.

"There are so many little details that are strange," he said.

He and his wife then called Austin police back to confirm the investigation was real, and told officers they had gotten a text from their son, Paul, earlier that night saying he had been involved in a crash. They also told police that he had serious medical problems, they said.

After the call, a patrol supervisor found a crashed vehicle about 1:40 a.m. near the 7500 block of East William Cannon Drive near McKinney Falls Parkway, where police said Paul Cantu was holding a gun to his head. The vehicle, though, was not the same one that evaded the traffic stop, according to police.

The supervisor and another officer tried to get Cantu to drop the weapon, police said, but shot him when he got up with his hands raised, and pointed the weapon at them, Manley said. Police said a weapon was recovered from the scene, but Cantu's family said he didn't own a gun.

Cantu was taken to St. David's South Austin Medical Center, where he died from his injuries at about 3:27 a.m.

Patricia and Robert Cantu said they never got a call that their son was in the hospital, despite having talked to police earlier that night. They learned about the shooting on the news the next morning, they said.

"It was cruel and heartless," Robert Cantu said. "None of this adds up."

Austin police on Friday said they had nothing new to share about the case and did not comment on the discrepancies described by the family.

The two officers involved, Luis Camacho and Robert Mattingly, have both served in the department for almost two years and are on administrative leave, as is standard policy in police shootings.

Paul Cantu was born in San Antonio in 1991. His parents said they tried to have children for three years before seeking an evangelist to pray with them on Oct. 3, 1990. Nine months later, their son was born, Robert Cantu said.

"He was definitely an answer to a prayer," he said. "He was our love and joy and our gift from the Lord."

His mom said he had been born with a disability and only had one-fourth lung capacity, but that he had been a talented violinist from a young age, winning international competitions and playing with a youth orchestra since he was 4. He was awarded a music scholarship to Texas Tech University, graduated with honors and worked in journalism, she said.

"He was very kind and very shy because he was an only child. Our son had no history of violence ever," she said. "We loved him dearly."

Paul Cantu had struggled his whole life with psoriasis, a skin condition that caused scaly patches all over his body, his dad said. Recently, it had gotten worse and spread to his scalp and face, which caused his co-workers to make fun of him, Robert Cantu said. A dermatologist put Paul Cantu on the drug Cosentyx, his father said, but Paul had been in and out of the hospital with convulsions, which his dad wasn't sure had to do with the medication or another condition. He said now they'll never know.

"This is too much for a mother, too much for any human to deal with," Patricia Cantu said. "The police have to release all the body camera and the dashboard footage immediately so that this family can have closure. … I will never accept that these police, when they were supposed to render help, that they murdered my son."

The department does not release body camera footage from officer-involved shootings until the conclusion of both the internal and criminal investigations. Manley said Tuesday that police footage shows the officers tried for several minutes to de-escalate the situation and calm Cantu down, but that it also shows Paul Cantu pointing a firearm at police.

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